Nine people, including seven adults and two young children, were found dead at three separate crime scenes in what Edmonton's police chief on Tuesday called a "senseless mass murder."

Chief Rod Knecht told a news conference the killings were the result of domestic violence. The victims included a woman found Monday night by officers who were responding to a weapons complaint at a south Edmonton home.

The bodies of three more women, two men, a boy and a girl were discovered a few hours later at a home in the northeast part of the city where officers had checked on reports of a suicidal male earlier in the evening.

None of the victims was identified, but Knecht said the public was not in danger.

"This series of events are not believed to be random acts," he said. "These events do not appear to be gang-related, but rather tragic incidents of domestic violence."

A man matching the description of the suicidal male was found dead in a restaurant in the Edmonton bedroom community of Fort Saskatchewan on Tuesday morning, Knecht said.

"Our homicide investigators have established associations and linkages between these homicides," he said.